No Masturbation? What A Boring Tea Party

There's been a bit of a hubbub lately surrounding Tea Party-backed Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell, ever since the staff of the Rachel Maddow Show uncovered an MTV video from the '90s that featured O'Donnell expounding upon her beliefs regarding certain sexual practices.

The lowdown? Basically, being a person with a very specific set of religious beliefs, O'Donnell's not down with the liberties that some people take with their genitals. That's all a nice way of saying that she seems to think that, in all cases, sex should be performed between a husband and wife.

With all of that as pure prologue, let's talk about how idealism is both a great and terrible thing. It would be fantastic if everyone only had sex with people they were strongly committed to. It would be super-duper if every child were conceived intentionally and with great gusto. And it would be really awesome if parents could provide comprehensive, accurate and only slightly awkward sexual education. Unfortunately, we'll probably see all of this the day after our Datsuns start running on rainbows and we find that we can convert our tinkle into iced tea.

The rationale behind O'Donnell's beliefs is two-fold: According to the Bible, you're only supposed to do sex stuff with a spouse (of non-similar gender). The second half of of O'Donnell's rationale assumes that if a man jerks off, he'll have no need for a woman to satisfy the sexual needs that must constitute the bedrock of marital relationships. Does Masturbation Count As Sex?